The sickening cycle of violence in the Palestinian Israeli conflict has become so predictable that any observer can estimate the next moves or actions. As sad as this is, understanding this predictability can become the way out of this unnecessary quagmire .

A pattern has developed in which a period of calm is punctured by the Israeli army through one of its special units assassinates a leading member of one of the militant Palestinian organizations. This premeditated killing is defended by Israel as an act of self defensive necessary to keep Israel’s edge over terrorists. The Israeli media hails what is called a ‘targeted killing’ as a success while the militant organization vows revenge. A few days later, the senseless revenge takes place in the form of a suicide bomb against innocent Israelis. Israel is enraged and imposes heavy collective punishment against the entire Palestinian community. If the suicide bomber is known (a last will video tape is often produced by his organization) then the Israeli army enters the town where he is from and bulldozes his family house leaving scores of family members homeless and angry, no doubt the potential for a future suicide bombers. 

The pattern continues with attempts by the Palestinian authority and other international groups to bring back the calm. The militants agree on condition that the Israelis stay off their backs. A unilateral ceasefire is then declared conditional on the Israelis not targeting their leaders. Quiet is accomplished for a week or two only to be broken by yet another assassination attempt and the cycle of violence quickly returns. An outside observer might conclude that it is impossible to reach a cease fire and eventually a peace agreement.

This is not true. A ceasefire has never been closer to being reached than it is today.

For seven weeks, the unilaterally imposed hudna had succeeded. Palestinian leaders knowing how fragile it was, had been arguing  for a true bilateral ceasefire. The Israelis have refused. As late as early in August the Palestinian minister in charge of international relations, Nabil Shaath, asked his Israeli partner, Silvan Shalom for such a ceasefire agreement.  Israeli officials publicly and privately refused such an offer opting instead on an impossible request that the Palestinian Authority dismantle the militant groups, an act that Israel with all its powers has not succeeded in doing.

Any ceasefire agreement requires both parties to refrain from attacking the other. These agreements normally include a clause setting up some kind of neutral third party monitors and finally for such a ceasefire agreement to stand it must be followed immediately upon signing it with a concerted effort to produce a political solution to the issues that caused the warring parties to attack each other. . The hudna worked out between the militant Palestinian groups and the Palestinian Authority with the knowledge of the Americans clearly was missing a major component with the absence of Israel in the agreement. One key component of this three month one sided truce was that leaders of the Palestinian resistance groups. Israel’s insistence in continuing with its assassination policy has led to a violent reaction. This pattern of assassinations followed by revenge suicide bombings and then further assassinations has become a broken record repeating itself ad nasum without either side giving in. To break the cycle of violence the thought of one side crushing the other side must be removed. Israeli thinking that yet one more assassination will cause the Palestinians to crumble and the Palestinian belief that one more suicide attack would cause the Israelis to raise the white flag have proved to be futile. India’s Mahatma Ghandi once said that an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth leaves the world blind and toothless. There has to be a stop to this zero sum game and a return to a sane policy based on reciprocity, compromise and reasonability.

The pattern of the past three years shows that the first order of business must be a ceasefire between the Israeli government and all its military and intelligence subsidiaries on the one hand and the Palestinian Authority with all the Palestinian factions. Such agreement must put an end to all types of military and armed attacks as well as assassinations. This agreement needs to be observed by a neutral third party. This could be done by the quartet led by the United States of America.

Finally such a ceasefire must be supported by concerted round the clock negotiations aimed at ending the basic reason for the violence, namely the occupation of the Palestinian areas and determining the issues of borders, settlements, refugees and Jerusalem. In Taba, Palestinian and Israeli negotiators were very close to agreement on all those issues early in 2001. President Bush’s vision of a state of a free and independent Palestine established in 2005 alongside a safe and secure state of Israel could also be used as a reference point for the talks.

For most teenagers, the world over, the age of sixteen is supposed to be a happy one. This is supposed to be a year of care free fun and enjoyment as they celebrate their sweet pre- adult sixteenths birthday.

Reaching 16, for Palestinians, especially those living in East Jerusalem, however, is not much fun. This is the age that they are supposed to start carrying the dreaded identification card and in turn the soldiers (not much older than them) can take pot shots at them without much concern or worry. Any young Palestinian that looks anywhere close to 16 better have an ID or a birth certificate showing that he/she are under this bitter/sweet age. 

My daughter Tamara who spent her 16^th birthday as a senior in an Ohio High School, as an exchange student, came home for the summer to obtain her ID. Her cousin, Manuel Abu Ali, who just turned sixteen has been moving around Jerusalem with difficulties, using his mother’s ID (which has his # listed) along with his school picture ID.  For Jerusalem Palestinians getting a personal ID, which ought to be a simple affair, has become the new via de la Rosa.  Unlike Israelis who get a 5 or ten year passport, Palestinians in Jerusalem can travel only on a laisser passier which can be issued for only year, thus adding to an already exasperated problem where 250,000 Palestinians are served by a single office of the Ministry of Interior and are denied the right to use any other office in order to get whatever official document they need. 

Palestinians in Jerusalem wishing to obtain any  of these official government certificate (birth certificate, marriage license, travel document or even death certificate) face an impossible task of simply entering the Interior Ministry offices. A few months ago, my brother, had to go to the Israeli supreme court demanding the right to enter these premises without having to wait all day in line, a task that doesn’t guaranteed that you get a turn that day.  The task of entering has become next to impossible for years because of a policy of lack of regard to the population, leaving frustrated Palestinian men and women to fight tooth and nail just to preserve a place in line, while scores of Israeli police and private security staff watch in amusement.

 Following the news of the new Israeli government’s choice for Minister of Interior many Palestinians expected that Mr. Poraz would live up to the name of his Shinui party and actually institute change in the way Palestinians from Jerusalem have been treated at his ministry’s office. Mr. Poraz’s initial decision granting residency to non Jews was seen as a positive omen that finally a man who respects human beings has become the big boss at the Interior Ministry.

 I must say, I was one of those people who was swept away by these hopeful thoughts, believing naively that things will change. When my daughter wanted to brave the lines, I supported her, discounting all those who raised concerns that the queues outside the ministry have become nothing short of what a typical crime-festered inner city is like. People were telling me that we would be better off simply paying off a lawyer (1,500 shekels and up) or one of the Jerusalem thugs who muscle their way infront of the line and then sell their place in queue for a couple of hundred shekels. I was determined to go at it alone, she and her cousin will have to wait a few hours in line, I said to my concerned brother-in-law who warned me that young thugs with switch blades, razors and other weapons run the show outside the ministry.

 A day before our target date, I visited the location at about 5pm, and pleasantly discovered that the problem was being taken care of. A bearded man was sitting across the street from the Interior Ministry offices with paper and pen, taking names in order. When I enquired, he told me that he and a few other Muslim faithfuls had taken it upon themselves to help organize the queue. Once you are registered you are expected to come at 10 pm for a roll call, if you are not present your name is crossed off, otherwise you can go home and return the next day at 5am for another final call. Great, I thought, and I duly registered and was told that our number is 16. All I needed was to return when names are announced at 10pm and the following day at 5 and we are home free.

 Well at 10 pm the bearded man was gone, a well muscled young man was rewriting the list. It had been torn in a fight. Not to worry, I was told, we registered again, this time we were given the 46^th spot, not good, but if all things went well we can go in with the second round which takes place at 9:30. At five am the following day, even this young muscular man was gone, and line was already backed up. The list was no longer valid, everyone for himself we were told. We took our place at the end of the line and waited till the Ministry opened at 8am.  Shortly before they opened two police cars arrived and arrested one of the young thugs in line. I later discovered that he had slashed the arm of a person pushing him causing 16 stitches. I took a deep breath and kept my calm. No sooner had the gate opened, another fight took place, and another and another. By 11 more than eight separate fights for places in line had taken place, both on the men’s side as well as on the women’s side. A few women were ahead of my daughter by this time. However, for some reason, the line seemed to stop. For hours, Tamara would plead with the guards to find out when she can get in and they would motion to here to wait a little. But it was a bluff. No one else would be allowed in after the last group that entered at 10:30. Some said it was because of the fights. Others pointed out that the Israelis were working on a shortened day because the following day was a Jewish holiday in remembrance of the destruction of the Jewish Temple.  Some said that only the Israeli ministry was short staffed that day and they could only handle so may. By three pm, dejected and angry, Tamara returned home along with her cousin who also failed to make it into the fortress of a building entitled the Ministry of Interior.

 For Tamara and her cousin, the young age of sixteen is not sweet at all. Because her college orientation in a few days, she will be traveling without having taken her ID card, with the hope that maybe next summer she can make into the building and get her personal ID card. Her cousin planned to come much earlier, the following Sunday, hoping to be able to get and to do it without getting slashed or knocked down. At the end of the day, our children were tired and angry. Standing in the hot sun with people pushing you around for ten hours was sheer hell. The main question that was repeated on their lips was simply isn’t there anyone that cares? I was glad, that they insisted on returning another day. Otherwise, I would be afraid that what many believe is a deliberate police is working. A more sinister person might say that this part of the ’transfer’ policy which right winger Israelis  say that the Israeli government should exercise, making life so difficult that Palestinians would voluntarily leave